Developing the world, how much is too much? - Writers Forum

Gozer · 07-15-2005, 10:36 PM

Hello, I've been a lurker for quite some time. I've posted a couple of fragments of stories, but that's about it. Recently, I've been working on developing the world/universe for my fantasy story. It's fun, but I've been running into some problems.

As of late I've been trying to create my setting, which is a sort of weird fantasy involving interdimensional travel. It's basically a collection of worlds/planets/realms (haven't really hammered out the details), and is sort of a space opera but without space travel. Like Planescape or something. There are alien races and strange steampunk technology, as well as magic. Firearms, constructs, weird science, the whole nine. But I've hit a snag.

If my setting involves multiple worlds, how detailed do I make each world? Can each world have multiple races, countries, cultures? I understand that the setting should be as lush and diverse and developed as possible, but at what point does it all get too messy and convoluted? Catalouging flora, fauna, history, languages, races etc. for a bunch of different worlds is not only tiresome, it also gets complex. Should I concentrate on just two or three worlds? At one point does fleshing out one world detract from the others? How do I keep the setting coherent?

Thanks in advance.

journyman161 · 07-15-2005, 10:53 PM

I'd say unless you're planning on explaining all these worlds to the reader, you make them as complex as you need so you as author can create the feel of the place as you tell your story.

Go to your library & get some of the scifi short story books from the 60's; in many of them the authors create an entire world for the reader, tell a snappy story & provide full-fleshed characters, in half a dozen pages!

It's the mood & feel of each world you want to get across. Build your worlds in detail for yourself, then put yourself in each world as you're writing about it. The building of the world for the reader should be transparent to the reader.

Destany · 07-16-2005, 12:04 AM

I would like to add something to the above response, having considered a similar question myself. My story is set in Ancient Egypt.
The first draft of this book, once reading over it, was quite stale. I had so much detail that it came off as a history lecture, rather than an authentic story. Overt detailing, especially in mundane objects, detracts greatly from the story and it loses flavor, rather than spices it up. I have the task of portraying it from the view point of a person who lived there and woudn't consider everything as fantastic and interesting as say, an egyptologist.
Case in point:
If you were describing a bedroom in a typical house in this day and age, would you tell the reader precisely everything? The bed is a box spring, with a mattress on top, set on a metal frame with a headboard made of wood and a footboard to match and a sheet fitted around the corners and another on top, followed by a blanket and a pillow?
Ancient Egyptian beds were nothing like they are today, and I don't expect my reader to know that, but to describe it would be pointless and only lead the reader to conclude that I did my homework.
Incidentally, since I did do my homework, I'd just like to say that an Ancient Egyptian bed consited of a wooden frame with a screen stretched tightly over it and instead of using pillows, they used a block of wood (fixed to the bed) that cradled the skull

It doesn't matter to the integrity of the story if the reader imagines a big fluffy pillow or mattress made of straw, and so... I don't describe every single thing. What I do describe, however, I use highly descriptive words in short order and a liken them to things the reader may see everyday (that still fits into the image I'm portraying) so there's less explaining, more reader-inuced imagery.

semtecks · 07-16-2005, 10:01 AM

How about a narrator who's a traveller between worlds? He could tell the story in our own terms

Gozer · 07-17-2005, 01:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Destany

stuff

Well, I'm not talking about description, necessarily. What my problem is, if my story involves multiple dimensions/planes/whatever, do I treat each one as stand-alone and seperate, or do I treat them all as one coherent setting and try to evenly split up my ideas? Should I focus on one major world, meticulously constructing one spot and then growing outward, or should I skip here and there and bring it all together?

One problem I have is that I'll get a good idea, but won't know how to apply it or where to put it. I'll be like "Ooh, this idea would be good for such-and-such...But then again, it'll fit nicely over here. Hmmm...". Anyone know what I mean? How do you make up your mind?

Thanks.

Destany · 07-17-2005, 10:25 AM

Okay, ask yourself this: What purpose do each of these worlds serve?
What roll does each serve in the plot, what part does each one play leading to the climax?
What does each world mean, or represent to your character(s)?

I don't know why you need everything evenly dispersed, then again, I don't know what you're trying to do with your story.
World A. is supposed to lead them into a false sense of security; World B. is supposed to reveal something about the plot/character; World C. is supposed to frighten them and make them feel angry enough to...

Once you've decided what purpose each world is to serve, you can better place your plot content into those worlds and just write it. Once the purpose(s) is served, move on to the next and don't mind the length of each one. As for each world being stand alone, or combined, I couldn't say. Which one best suits the plot and climax? If that's a nonissue, which would you prefer is you were your character?

Gozer · 07-17-2005, 06:53 PM

Thanks to everyone for the advice. I'm not really thinking about what purposes my ideas will serve. I just think of ideas that I think are cool and add them in, without thought of where they'd fit into a story. The way I see it, it's more important to create the world and the characters. If you've got a well-crafted and detailed backdrop, and well-defined and developed characters, than the story becomes obvious.

However, you bring up a good point. Perhaps if I work out what exactly I want to happen in my eventual story, than I can figure out what needs to be included and what doesn't. At any rate, thanks a lot for the advice.

Saponification · 07-18-2005, 01:42 AM

It should seem a part of your story, it shouldn't seem seperate. There shouldn't just be pages describing the lineage of this race or the politics of such and such a place: people won't care. They won't care unless you give them a reason to (characters, plot, whatever).

Gozer · 07-18-2005, 02:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saponification

It should seem a part of your story, it shouldn't seem seperate. There shouldn't just be pages describing the lineage of this race or the politics of such and such a place: people won't care. They won't care unless you give them a reason to (characters, plot, whatever).

I understand that. That's not at ALL what I'm talking about, though. I'm not talking about description in the text, such as how to describe this or that in a scene. I'm talking about general worldbuilding and background information. The reader may not ever have to know some of the details of my setting, but I'd like to get most of it straight before I write, for my own benefit. The same goes for characters. As for the story, I never said it should be seperate. Like I said, if I got the characters and world down pat, the story will flow naturally. I have some ideas for the actual plot, too, but I'm trying to reconcile all my world ideas to make it all jive together smoothly.

clearbluesky · 07-19-2005, 04:12 PM

First of all, I'm assuming that these worlds haven't been connected forever, so each evoled on it's own, right? Then it stands to reason they would be different. Also, this would soooo much more intresting and fun to write.

I don't know your plot, but I'm guessing it would help to develop the worlds to help the plot flow. Maybe I'm stating the obvious, but seriously consider it. For example, if Planet Whoknowswhat is where you are staging a revelutionary movement, doesn't it make sense to create a world where something like that is likely to happen? Woundn't you add things like poverty and disease all caused because it has been ravaged by war? The culture thus the culture would be divided and segregated. A world like that would make much more sense to stage an uprising in than a world like where I live in Idaho.

For sake of simplicity, have them all be able to communicate someway or another. But it would make it so much more itresting to write and read to have the different cultural differences clash and see how they adjust to each other. I know it's a ton of work to create realistic societies and cultures, but it pays off, (even though, I've discovered, not half of what I create in this process even reaches the pages.)

Oracle · 07-21-2005, 01:38 AM

Ah, I'm glad to see that there's someone besides me who likes to figure out every aspect of the world even though most of it won't even be mentioned in the book.

I would start by focusing on the settings that are important to your book.

That means any settings your characters will be in, and any places that impact those settings. You only need a basic, vague idea of the places you aren't using right away, and I can garuntee that while you write the actual story, you'll come up with all kinds of new details. Good luck.

Crazy_dude6662 · 07-21-2005, 06:17 PM

there is no point in deiciding on whats going to be in every part of every world as your character wont be going every where in these worlds. its like writing a story set in ireland, why would you research a city that might only come up in reference eg: he looked at the sign post trying to decide where to go, to go to cork or to go to Dublin. either dicision will greatly impact his life, he bent his head and headed into the rain towards dublin.

why would you go and research cork?

speculative · 07-25-2005, 05:29 PM

Honestly, it depends on what kind of actual writing you want to do (style-wise). While writing short stories for a college fiction course, I discovered the art of "taking things for granted." Sometimes, you can do too much explaining...

It is most important, in my mind, that the author understand how everything in their world works when it comes to world building. You don't want to hit page 229 only to realize your whole magic system destroys the possibility of following your plot to its logical conclusion.